Give Me A Word

Every now and then I will arrive a few minutes late to daily Mass. It is customary in these situations when the Word of God is being read, to stand quietly in the back until the readings are finished, then to take your seat. Why? Because when the words of scripture are being proclaimed, God is truly present, living and active. "When the Scriptures are read in the Church, God Himself is speaking to His people and Christ, present in His own word, is proclaiming the Gospel." (GIRM, n.29) Do you really want to draw attention to yourself while the King of Kings and Lord of Lord is present in your midst? Rude!

The Word incarnate, the Divine Logos (λόγος), is so fundamental to a Christian anthropology, that is it sets the stage for everything that follows in John's gospel. God speaks life into existence in the very first chapter of Genesis, and so to in John's account of the pre-existent Christ: "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God" (Jn 1:1). To ascribe finite language with the Unknowable, Unnamable, infinite Creator of the Universe may seem strange to general Deists, ignostics, and even Jews. But the Christian god--God incarnate in the person of Jesus Christ, who comes crashing through space and time to ransom His captive people, "the Word became flesh and made His dwelling among us (Jn 1:14).

The Scripture, the Word of God, is not dead letters on a page as in a history book, but alive and with power. Like a spore or a tiny seed carried through the air, it has the power to take root in a man's heart and turn his life inside out when he is disposed to it. As St. James writes, "Be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves. For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man observing his natural face in a mirror; for he observes himself, goes away, and immediately forgets what kind of man he was. But he who looks into the perfect law of liberty and continues in it, and is not a forgetful hearer but a doer of the work, this one will be blessed in what he does." (James 1:22-25)

I have two icons on the wall on either side of the crucifix at my prayer station. On one side is Our Lady of Guadalupe, and on the other is St. Anthony of Egypt--ascetic, battler of demons, and the father of Western monasticism. But it all started with a word. From St. Athanasius:

"Not six months after his parents’ death, as he [Anthony] was on his way to church for his usual visit, he began to think of how the apostles had left everything and followed the Savior, and also of those mentioned in the book of Acts who had sold their possessions and brought the apostles the money for distribution to the needy. He reflected too on the great hope stored up in heaven for such as these. This was all in his mind when, entering the church just as the Gospel was being read, he heard the Lord’s words to the rich man: If you want to be perfect, go and sell all you have and give the money to the poor – you will have riches in heaven. Then come and follow me.

It seemed to Antony that it was God who had brought the saints to his mind and that the words of the Gospel had been spoken directly to him. Immediately he left the church and gave away to the villagers all the property he had inherited, about 200 acres of very beautiful and fertile land, so that it would cause no distraction to his sister and himself. He sold all his other possessions as well, giving to the poor the considerable sum of money he collected. However, to care for his sister he retained a few things.

 The next time he went to church he heard the Lord say in the Gospel: Do not be anxious about tomorrow. Without a moment’s hesitation he went out and gave the poor all that he had left. He placed his sister in the care of some well-known and trustworthy virgins and arranged for her to be brought up in the convent. Then he gave himself up to the ascetic life, not far from his own home."

The Word took root in this fertile soil. Anthony would go on to be a great saint and, as mentioned previously, the father of Western monasticism and catalyst for a "flight to the desert." Why a flight? Constantine's Edict of Milan issued in 313AD essentially put an end to state-sanctioned persecution and the opportunity for martyrdom. The "radical" discipleship of Anthony was only radical in contrast to the comfortableness of status-quo Christians or CINOs (Catholics in Name Only) who enjoyed the benefits of the protection of the Emperor. Anthony sparked a unintentional movement of solitary (and eventually, communal) living apart from the world and devoted to the practice of prayer and asceticism.

It was common for those coming to the desert seeking the way to Life to beg one of the Fathers to "give a word," the way Lazarus longed even for the crumbs that fell from the table of the rich man (Lk 16:21). And so we see this theme again, of the word emanating and giving life, being alive and pregnant with the kernel of Truth itself. While the holy men and women in the desert lived on crumbs of bread, those who have not been mortified seeking a new way of life lived on the utterances of sparse words, the utterances of wisdom from those who had merit.

The early Desert Fathers and Mothers were the first "self-selecting" believers. Until the Edict of Milan was issued, Christians were minorities subject to persecution, who believed the Parousia was imminent. When Christianity gained protected legal status, it had a 'relaxing' effect--believers could breath a sigh of relief, but also seek status and remain in a comfortable state. The early monastic communities were essentially an alternative Christian society for quote-unquote "serious" Christians who sought also an alternative martyrdom through asceticism, a "death to the flesh."

What was their motivation? Some interesting notes from New Advent:

"Besides a desire of observing the evangelical counsels, and a horror of the vice and disorder that prevailed in a pagan age, two contributory causes in particular are often indicated as leading to a renunciation of the world among the early Christians. The first of these was the expectation of an immediate Second Advent of Christ (cf. 1 Corinthians 7:29-31; 1 Peter 4:7, etc.) That this belief was widespread is admitted on all hands, and obviously it would afford a strong motive for renunciation since a man who expects this present order of things to end at any moment, will lose keen interest in many matters commonly held to be important. This belief however had ceased to be of any great influence by the fourth century, so that it cannot be regarded as a determining factor in the origin of monasticism which then took visible shape.

A second cause more operative in leading men to renounce the world was the vividness of their belief in evil spirits. The first Christians saw the kingdom of Satan actually realized in the political and social life of heathendom around them. In their eyes the gods whose temples shone in every city were simply devils, and to participate in their rites was to join in devil worship. When Christianity first came in touch with the Gentiles the Council of Jerusalem by its decree about meat offered to idols (Acts 15:20) made clear the line to be followed. Consequently certain professions were practically closed to believers since a soldier, schoolmaster, or state official of any kind might be called upon at a moment's notice to participate in some act of state religion. But the difficulty existed for private individuals also. There were gods who presided over every moment of a man's life, gods of house and garden, of food and drink, of health and sickness. To honour these was idolatry, to ignore them would attract inquiry, and possibly persecution. And so when, to men placed in this dilemma, St. John wrote, "Keep yourselves from idols" (1 John 5:21) he said in effect "Keep yourselves from public life, from society, from politics, from intercourse of any kind with the heathen", in short, "renounce the world"."

We are entering a 4th century situation, but in reverse. Those Christians who "self-select," who may be accused of being overzealous or "too-serious" Catholics share the same horror of vice and pagan disorder, as well as a vivid belief in evil spirits, "the kingdom of Satan realized in the political and social life of heathendom around them." It is not necessarily solitude we seek out in the desert and secluded places, but each other--those hidden believers to whom we can confide our "seriousness," to whom living as if the parousia was scheduled for tomorrow is not weird or extreme, but in line with how a Christian should be living all along. Just as Anthony sought out Abba Paul, who sought out the cold comfort of the harsh desert life, so too do the Christians of the new age of martyrdom seek to separate themselves from the persecution of a pagan culture and be strengthened and fortified by those who "get it." We "seek a word," and wisdom is always appreciated; but it could be a word of encouragement to keep going when our own family or friends have turned against us (as our Lord tells us to expect), to NOT feel so alone, where many of us are forced--either by necessity or circumstance--to be in the world.

"But mark this: There will be terrible times in the last days. People will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boastful, proud, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, without love, unforgiving, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not lovers of the good, treacherous, rash, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God— having a form of godliness but denying its power. Have nothing to do with such people. They are the kind who worm their way into homes and gain control over gullible women, who are loaded down with sins and are swayed by all kinds of evil desires, always learning but never able to come to a knowledge of the truth. Just as Jannes and Jambres opposed Moses, so also these teachers oppose the truth. They are men of depraved minds, who, as far as the faith is concerned, are rejected. But they will not get very far because, as in the case of those men, their folly will be clear to everyone. You, however, know all about my teaching, my way of life, my purpose, faith, patience, love, endurance, persecutions, sufferings—what kinds of things happened to me in Antioch, Iconium and Lystra, the persecutions I endured. Yet the Lord rescued me from all of them. In fact, everyone who wants to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted, while evildoers and impostors will go from bad to worse, deceiving and being deceived. But as for you, continue in what you have learned and have become convinced of, because you know those from whom you learned it, and how from infancy you have known the Holy Scriptures, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus. All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the servant of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work." (2 Tim 3:1-17).

The Word--the living Word--sustains us. As our Lord says, "man does not live by bread alone" (Mt 4:4). And yet bread alone is what the world offers. And not only the world, but fellow "semi-believers" and quasi-Catholics as well, who have the husk without the grain, the veneer without the engine, the Faith without belief. Yes, we are called to be a light of the world (Mt 5:14), but we also must be fortified and strengthened for what lies ahead, and this may very well not happen among non-believers and CINOs. It is this kind of new monasticism that is interdependent rather than independent, in the world rather than separated from it, clandestine rather than flying out in the open. It's only because we know what is coming.

The Spectre of Death

I learned--inadvertently and unexpectedly by way of a second-hand tag--that a man I knew, had lived with and worked beside at The Catholic Worker 18 years ago, died this week in his early fifties. From what I gathered, it was by his own hand, and I was not surprised to learn from those in the community who knew him that he struggled with depression.

I don't feel comfortable or entitled to write about him in any kind of elegy fashion. It's a community committed to social justice in the far-left activist tradition that I no longer feel connected to. I have some fond memories of working in the community garden together, running around town in his old pick up truck picking up free food for the poor, attending Mass together across the street from where we lived, hanging anti-war and anti-capitalist messages hand painted on bedsheets out the bay window of our row house, and his tales of being arrested and protesting at the School of the Americas calling for demilitarization and nuclear disarmament. He was a difficult guy to live with temperament wise for me, but was true to his calling of radically living the Gospel message and embracing decentralized governance and voluntary poverty in the spirit of Dorothy Day and Peter Maurin. He was a one of a kind character for sure and dressed the part, with his gruff voice, barrel chest, overalls, and long nattled hair. Everybody in the 'hood knew and loved N.

I have written about suicide and resisting the allure of the phantasmal Noonday Demon here and here and here and here and here and here and here and here and here. It's no stranger, and though I may not feel entitled to write an elegy for N., the jarring reminder of the spectre of death that this demon brings on his back appeared when I read the news. No one, no family, is immune from it.

Our Lord says in scripture, "The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full (Jn 10:10). This describes my view of suicide; it robs life. It is always tragic, especially for those who love the one robbed of life. Like the Devil himself, the promises of suicide are lies, the ultimate lies.

On the topic of suicide, the Catechism states:

2280 Everyone is responsible for his life before God who has given it to him. It is God who remains the sovereign Master of life. We are obliged to accept life gratefully and preserve it for his honor and the salvation of our souls. We are stewards, not owners, of the life God has entrusted to us. It is not ours to dispose of.

2281 Suicide contradicts the natural inclination of the human being to preserve and perpetuate his life. It is gravely contrary to the just love of self. It likewise offends love of neighbor because it unjustly breaks the ties of solidarity with family, nation, and other human societies to which we continue to have obligations. Suicide is contrary to love for the living God.

2282 If suicide is committed with the intention of setting an example, especially to the young, it also takes on the gravity of scandal. Voluntary co-operation in suicide is contrary to the moral law.
Grave psychological disturbances, anguish, or grave fear of hardship, suffering, or torture can diminish the responsibility of the one committing suicide.

It is often presumed that the Church says with unequivocally that those who have committed this sin have bought a one way ticket to Hell. Although we can reasonably speculate that Hell is not, in fact, empty--that many, many people go there--it is not in fact for us to speculate on those who go there. We may be certain of those in Heaven, the canonized saints. But as to the eternal fate of the large majority of us commonplace run of the mill sinners--God reserves the knowledge. It is not our place to judge souls.

The Devil wants us to despair. But its antidote--hope--is a powerful virtue. As the Catechism states,

2283 We should not despair of the eternal salvation of persons who have taken their own lives. By ways known to him alone, God can provide the opportunity for salutary repentance. The Church prays for persons who have taken their own lives.

We should be careful not to stand in judgment. What a terrifying prospect, this ricocheting bullet in scripture that threatens to rip through our own lips from which the judgment emminated: "For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you" (Mt 7:2). To consign someone to Hell and then find our own names on the ticket!

Hearing of suicides--friends, family, strangers, teenagers, elderly, those well off with everything and those struggling under the weight of despair, men, women, veterans, housewives--it always shakes me. Because the face of the spectre of death is not a figment, but a familiar visitor I have to continue to resist, having wrestled like Jacob on the edge of the abyss with the Angel of Death, my hip put out of joint as a reminder of the struggle. He flees for a time, and it is only the inoculation of grace, I believe, that keeps him at bay.

Please offer a prayer for N, for the repose of his soul. St. Dymphna, pray for us.

By Your Words You Shall Be Condemned

There is a story from the East I read years ago that has stayed with me over the years. It goes something like this:

"The Zen master Hakuin was praised by his neighbors as one living a pure life.  

A beautiful Japanese girl whose parents owned a food store lived near him. Suddenly, without any warning, her parents discovered she was with child.  

This made her parents angry. She would not confess who the man was, but after much harassment at last named Hakuin.   

In great anger the parents went to the master. "Is that so?" was all he would say.  

After the child was born it was brought to Hakuin. By this time he had lost his reputation, which did not trouble him, but he took very good care of the child. He obtained milk from his neighbors and everything else the little one needed.  

A year later the girl-mother could stand it no longer. She told her parents the truth--that the real father of the child was a young man who worked in the fishmarket.  

The mother and father of the girl at once went to Hakuin to ask his forgiveness, to apologize at length, and to get the child back again.  

Hakuin was willing. In yielding the child, all he said was: "Is that so?""

There is a similar story in the deuterocanonical 13th chapter of Daniel that gives light to living under false accusations from the vantage point of Susanna, the beautiful and God-fearing wife of Joakim, a rich and respected Jew.

In the story, two elders who have been appointed as judges and who were regulars at Joakim's house become enamored of his wife Susanna, and lust for her. It is interesting to note that "though both were enamored of her, they did not tell each other their trouble, for they were ashamed to reveal their lustful desire to have her" (Dan 13:10).

When the two lawless perverts go their separate ways but embarrassingly end up back at the same spot on account of their burning passion, they decide to conspire together to find an opportunity to make her the object of their lust. Susanna is cornered in the garden where she is bathing but cries out; in response to their thwarted desires, she is subsequently falsely accused by the wicked elders. The story is preposterous given Susanna's reputation; nonetheless, "the assembly believed them, since they were elders and judges of the people," and condemned her to death (13:41).

Susanna knows she has no recourse but to God alone, and cries out to Him aloud. And it is written, "the Lord heard her prayer" (13:44). He sends the young Daniel to speak out against the injustice, who sends the people back to court. Daniel separates the two elders, obtains conflicting stories and in the process exposes their lies. Susanna is vindicated and the lawless judges are put to death in accordance with the law of Moses.

I happened upon this story of Susanna by way of the inestimable St. Ambrose, who makes reference to her in his treatise "On The Duties of Clergy." Although covering various facets of the state of the ministerial office, it is his words on the virtue of holding silence that held me.

Why? Because I have a big mouth, that's why. Not only that, but those many hidden sins that we conveniently excuse ourselves from, or are not able to see but by grace, show us just how far we are from sainthood.


It Is Dangerous To Speak

Ambrose posits that there is more merit in keeping silent than in speaking, a virtue made all the more arduous to attain because of our sinful tongues and the temptations of the Enemy. He writes,

"What need is there, then, that you should hasten to undergo the danger of condemnation by speaking, when you can be more safe by keeping silent? How many have I seen to fall into sin by speaking, but scarcely one by keeping silent; and so it is more difficult to know how to keep silent than how to speak. I know that most persons speak because they do not know how to keep silent. It is seldom that any one is silent even when speaking profits him nothing. He is wise, then, who knows how to keep silent." (2.5)

Likewise, we see in the saints the model of holy silence. They eschewed in horror the occasions of sin, whether by fear, prudence, or recognition of their own weakness; we know that the tongue is no exception.

"Therefore the saints of the Lord loved to keep silence, because they knew that a man's voice is often the utterance of sin, and a man's speech is the beginning of human error. Lastly, the Saint of the Lord said: I said, I will take heed to my ways, that I offend not in my tongue. For he knew and had read that it was a mark of the divine protection for a man to be hid from the scourge of his own tongue, Job 5:21 and the witness of his own conscience. We are chastised by the silent reproaches of our thoughts, and by the judgment of conscience. We are chastised also by the lash of our own voice, when we say things whereby our soul is mortally injured, and our mind is sorely wounded." (2.6)

Our Lord says that we must give an account of every idle word uttered (Mt 12:36). What a frightening thought when your mouth is like the flapper of a toilet with a kinked chain that constantly gets stuck open.

Active and Idle Silence

Ambrose distinguishes between the holy and active silence of heroines like Susanna who stake their trust in God, and the lazy idle silence of those afraid to speak when speech is warranted. He extols the virtues of David who "enjoined on himself not constant silence, but watchfulness." In the story of Susanna, it is Daniel who is enflamed to speak, when he could have idly stood by and let an innocent woman be put to death. Our lips must be guarded in the way we guard our hearts, as he quotes the prophet "Hedge your possession about with thorns, and bind up your silver and gold, and make a door and a bar for your mouth, and a yoke and a balance for your words" (Sirach 28:24-25).


Words of Provocation

In the fourth chapter of his treatise, Ambrose lays out how the Enemy uses our passions and our words of expression against us through temptation. Social media, for all its merits, is often a fetid swamp of temptation to sins against the tongue, to uncharity, to rash judgment, and to passion contrary to reason. It takes a very restrained man to navigate it, and I am not one of those men, for in the virtues Ambrose extols--mildness, gentleness, modesty, temperance, patience--are sorely lacking in my character, and so his words serve as a searing indictment.

"If any one takes heed to this, he will be mild, gentle, modest. For in guarding his mouth, and restraining his tongue, and in not speaking before examining, pondering, and weighing his words — as to whether this should be said, that should be answered, or whether it be a suitable time for this remark — he certainly is practising modesty, gentleness, patience. So he will not burst out into speech through displeasure or anger, nor give sign of any passion in his words, nor proclaim that the flames of lust are burning in his language, or that the incentives of wrath are present in what he says. Let him act thus for fear that his words, which ought to grace his inner life, should at the last plainly show and prove that there is some vice in his morals. 

For then especially does the enemy lay his plans, when he sees passions engendered in us; then he supplies tinder; then he lays snares. Wherefore the prophet says not without cause, as we heard read today: Surely He has delivered me from the snare of the hunter and from the hard word. Symmachus said this means the word of provocation; others the word that brings disquiet. The snare of the enemy is our speech — but that itself is also just as much an enemy to us. Too often we say something that our foe takes hold of, and whereby he wounds us as though by our own sword. How far better it is to perish by the sword of others than by our own! 

Accordingly the enemy tests our arms and clashes together his weapons. If he sees that I am disturbed, he implants the points of his darts, so as to raise a crop of quarrels. If I utter an unseemly word, he sets his snare. Then he puts before me the opportunity for revenge as a bait, so that in desiring to be revenged, I may put myself in the snare, and draw the death-knot tight for myself. If any one feels this enemy is near, he ought to give greater heed to his mouth, lest he make room for the enemy; but not many see him." (4.14-16)

Not Ashamed To Become Dumb

The most convicting section in his treatise is chapter 5 in which the saint warns against the temptation to return abuse. It is a just man who hides his feelings. For someone who loves the power of expression, it can be a painful prospect to remain silent when you feel the urge to retaliate or defend yourself when spoke against, like trying to hold it in when you really have to go to the bathroom. I love the expression he uses "to preserve the fruit of a good conscience...to trust himself to the judgment of good men than to the insolence of a calumniator, and to be satisfied with the stability of his own character." This is the "Is That So?" opportunity, for according to Ambrose one should keep silence even from good words, since one who has a good conscience should not be troubled by false words. I recall Cardinal Sarah seeming to institute this by his dignified and humble silence when he was maligned by detractors. How much I have to learn under the tutelage of silence.

"But we must also guard against him who can be seen, and who provokes us, and spurs us on, and exasperates us, and supplies what will excite us to licentiousness or lust. If, then, any one reviles us, irritates, stirs us up to violence, tries to make us quarrel; let us keep silence, let us not be ashamed to become dumb. For he who irritates us and does us an injury is committing sin, and wishes us to become like himself.

Certainly if you are silent, and hide your feelings, he is likely to say: Why are you silent? Speak if you dare; but you dare not, you are dumb, I have made you speechless. If you are silent, he is the more excited. He thinks himself beaten, laughed at, little thought of, and ridiculed. If you answer, he thinks he has become the victor, because he has found one like himself. For if you are silent, men will say: That man has been abusive, but this one held him in contempt. If you return the abuse, they will say: Both have been abusive. Both will be condemned, neither will be acquitted. Therefore it is his object to irritate, so that I may speak and act as he does. But it is the duty of a just man to hide his feelings and say nothing, to preserve the fruit of a good conscience, to trust himself rather to the judgment of good men than to the insolence of a calumniator, and to be satisfied with the stability of his own character. For that is: To keep silence even from good words; since one who has a good conscience ought not to be troubled by false words, nor ought he to make more of another's abuse than of the witness of his own heart.

So, then, let a man guard also his humility. If, however, he is unwilling to appear too humble, he thinks as follows, and says within himself: Am I to allow this man to despise me, and say such things to my face against me, as though I could not open my mouth before him? Why should I not also say something whereby I can grieve him? Am I to let him do me wrong, as though I were not a man, and as though I could not avenge myself? Is he to bring charges against me as though I could not bring together worse ones against him?

Whoever speaks like this is not gentle and humble, nor is he without temptation. The tempter stirs him up, and himself puts such thoughts in his heart. Often and often, too, the evil spirit employs another person, and gets him to say such things to him; but do thou set your foot firm on the rock. Although a slave should abuse, let the just man be silent, and if a weak man utter insults, let him be silent, and if a poor man should make accusations, let him not answer. These are the weapons of the just man, so that he may conquer by giving way, as those skilled in throwing the javelin are wont to conquer by giving way, and in flight to wound their pursuers with severer blows." (5.17-20)

Silence and bridling of the tongue when faced with the temptation to return calumny blow for blow is a powerful weapon. We should not underestimate the power of such temptation either, for resisting the desire for revenge and the desire to speak when we should keep silent can press against us the way a man labors against lust; he suffers for it. It burns and presses against him, promising that it will never subside until satiated. It is during these times that we must pray, trust, and resist, holding fast to Christ and following his character. A man most chaste, meek and mild, who opened not his mouth and never let an idle word come to pass and who kept silence amidst fools.

When your enemy is hungry, give him food to eat, and if he is thirsty give him water to drink. This is the "active silence" of holy resistance, the heaping of coals upon your enemy's head (Prov 25:21-22). What enemy, you might ask? Our detractors? Perhaps. But we should not overlook the Enemy lurking in our hearts, from where all evil comes (Mt 15:19; Jer 17:9).

When faced with the prospect of offending the Lord and our neighbor by our tongue and careless words, or holding the burning coal of silence in our mouth, which sears our wicked tongue and blisters our sinful mouth, we should eschew the former and embrace the latter. It is the Lord who burns us, as he did Isaiah, who accused himself of being a man of unclean lips and the Lord in response touched his lips with a red hot ember (Is 6:5-7).

"But I tell you that anyone who is angry with a brother or sister will be subject to judgment. Again, anyone who says to a brother or sister, 'Raca,' is answerable to the court. And anyone who says, 'You fool!' will be in danger of the fire of hell." (Mt 5:22)

May the Lord sear our lips and seal the vault of our mouth to preserve us from blasphemy, from sin against our neighbor, and from the indictments we issue which condemn us to hell. And Lord, please start with me.

UnPlanned

My wife and I just got back from seeing Unplanned, the story of former clinic director Abby Johnson who left Planned Parenthood after eight years working for the organization and became a pro-life advocate. She was the youngest clinic director in Planned Parenthood's history. She now heads up "And Then There Were None," which helps other abortion workers leave the industry. This isn't a film review, just some varied thoughts.

The film opens up in a strategic way, IMO. It shows the PP escorts (Abby had volunteered as one, which is how she got her start with the organization) as caring in a compassionate way for the young women coming to the clinic. They meet them at their cars and tell them to "ignore" the "protestors." "Start talking to them right away," the escort showing Abby the ropes says. "What about," Abby asks. "Anything. Just keep them distracted." The flip side of showing the escorts in a positive light is something I have personally struggled with reconciling, and that is the aggressive "baby killer" model of (men, in this case) shouting at the women going in. You see early on there are two groups on the "other side of the fence" and the other group is the 40 Days for Life folks. The young woman speaks kindly to Abby and they develop a kind of relationship in their respective professional areas--one a PP volunteer, the other a 40DFL volunteer (both pregnant at one point too).

Abby doesn't do anything half-way. The current clinic director sees her potential and calls her into the "POC" room, a room she had never been in before. "You know what POC stands for, right?" one of staff ask her. "Products of Conception," she says. "Pieces of Children," the staff member replied in retort.

An interesting scene ensues, I'm not sure if others have noted it or not. Zachary King has spoken of abortion as a Satanic sacrifice. The way the scene is filmed and the language used when Abby enters the POC room points to a kind of parallel. She refers to the POC room as "the Holy of Holies" and in the scene the camera floats through a wall where there is a kind of pass-through vault of aborted baby parts, which must carefully be counted by the staff to ensure none are left inside the woman's uterus. If you know anything about the "Holy of Holies" in the Catholic Church, and the tabernacle that houses the Eucharist--the body of Christ--this will not be lost on you.

In the break room at one point, a staffer recounts an incident in which Shawn Carney of 40 Days for Life (the young man in the blue shirt) knocks on her door to ask for prayers and to raise awareness of the cause, when they both realize they 'know' each other from their respective camps. The staff proceed to kind of make fun of what he's doing, going door to door, until she lets it drop that he's knocked on about 25,000 doors. "What are the odds, right?" 25,000 doors. This is a young man who sees what is going on and is committed to making it a thing of the past in our culture. He and his wife will later be instrumental in helping Abby leave PP.

The role of "a job" was one that has been on my mind lately. I've had some dirty jobs before, mostly in my twenties, but was always able to move on to something else. I presume Abby was doing pretty well at PP, they compensated her well, and the staffers likewise were doing awful work but everybody has to work, so you kind of turn a blind eye to it. It's easy to say, "just walk away," but with bills to pay and families to support it's easy to rationalize things. The fear of the unknown, of not knowing how one will support oneself if such an industry is all you know, I think keeps a lot of people there. It's like stripping or drug dealing. Just keep focused and don't look at what you're really doing. That's why Abby's work with "And Then There Were None", and 40 Days for Life as well, are so important, because they see you have to have something in place for the real financial fallout of leaving the industry. It's like in scripture when it says in James 2:16: "If one of you says to them, "Go in peace; keep warm and well fed," but does nothing about their physical needs, what good is it?" They are doing a real and valuable thing in providing alternatives so people actually can leave the industry.

A telling scene concerning the business model of Planned Parenthood comes at a corporate meeting in which Abby is given an award but puts the Director in an uncomfortable position when she questions the pushing of abortion vs. the preventing of unwanted pregnancies via birth control. "Abortion is our fries and soda" she spits, making reference to the high margin markups in fast food restaurants, where they "break even" on hamburgers but the real money is in the ancillaries. "Abortion is what pays your salary. When Abby notes that PP is a non-profit, her boss notes, "Non-profit is a tax status, not a business model."

The scene (that others may have noted) that had me beside myself was when the bio-medical "waste" hauler comes out with a blue 55 gallon drum of aborted babies and body parts to load up. You kind of feel for him, he is just doing his job (again, back to the job thing). Shawn and the 40 Days folks ask if they can pray over the remains. "Ok," the hauler says, "but you might want to wait. I got another one coming out." It's a powerful prayer. This is a holocaust on a magnitude almost icomprehenisible to human sensibilities, happening right under our noses, every day, every second, in every part of the world.

Abby is a modern day Paul of Tarsus. When Saul was putting Christians to death and encountered the Lord, the early Church wasn't sure they could trust him. When Abby shows up at the 40 Days for Life office "wanting out", having been blinded by the light, knocked off her horse, and, later, crippled under the weight of her guilt and sin, it would be understandable to question or condemn her. But these Christians don't do that. They take her in and speak to her of love and forgiveness, not condemnation and judgment. Though she was complicit, like Paul she will become a fierce and zealous advocate for the very lives she oversaw the destruction of: 22,000 in all under her watch.

Abby's husband (Doug on Tap) is a rockstar. I don't know him in real life, but he seems like a model husband that hates what his wife is doing but loves her and is there for her in everything. As I understand he holds down the fort with their eight kids while she is doing the work she is called to do. Maybe not the most traditional model, but not the most traditional of circumstances either.

When PP takes Abby and Shawn to court, I could feel my palms starting to sweat. This is truly a David and Goliath fight ("We have Soros, we have Gates, with have Buffet," Abby's boss says. "Who do you have?"), but ultimately they had no ground to stand on. I loved the lawyer representing Abby and Shawn, and his affable laid backness, because he knows in this instance the truth is on their side. Pro life work is not for the weak of heart. David Daleiden is one young man I admire very much, and part of what impressed me so much is he is so cool under massive and numerous lawsuits. Courts and such can be intimidating, but he ultimately knows the Truth will not forever be silenced and he is not on "the wrong side of history."

There are other things I could say and note, but the image I was left with, that seared into my consciousness, came early in the film. Abby is in the surgery room during an abortion, a first for her. She is assisting with the ultrasound and sees the baby in the patient's womb clear as day. As the abortionist works at pulling out the struggling fetus by the leg and the clear tubes begin to fill with blood and fluid, and the machine picks up force, eventually what is left as the legs, torso, and, ultimately, head are suctioned out, is...an empty hole. A black, empty hole in the uterus, where a life used to be but is no more. The fetus fought to escape the instruments, on the ultrasound screen, but there was no one to come to his or her rescue. The empty space in the uterus is the kind of empty space left in the soul after such an act of violence--of the mother, of the boyfriend or father or grandmother that drove them to the clinic to "get it taken care of," of the abortionist, of those helping to procure it--where God's grace used to be. This cavernous void is an empty place in need of healing, but it must be seen for what it is. God's mercy is fathomless, but we must face that void--not just for our role in what we have done, or what we have failed to do when it comes to abortion, but with all sin that robs us of the indwelling of grace, the place where God used to live. There is redemption, a ransoming the weight of which only Christ's cross can bear, but it came at a steep price.

I hope all can see this film. The acting is very good, not hokey in the slightest, and pulls the rug out on the lies that Planned Parenthood perpetuates in their work, a false and misguided compassion motivated by profit and tells a story of the power of persistent prayer by pro-life stalwarts working tireless (75% of no shows at the clinic happened when prayer vigils showed up, remember that!) for years in the hopes of a Saul becoming a Paul. Abby Johnson was an agent of death who was blinded by the light and was called to become a tireless apostle for Life. There is redemption. There is a lot of work to be done, and the battle for Life is just getting started.

The Progressive Presupposition

This evening I attended a panel discussion at the invitation of a friend. The title of the sponsored evening was "A Crisis of Leadership and Faith" and included three panelists--a child advocacy lawyer, a theologian, and a parish priest--who shared their views on the "reality behind the headlines" of the clergy abuse scandal from their respective positions. It was held at a local Catholic college, one of a dozen or so in our immediate area.

I went into the evening with as open a mind as I could. My inclination was to presuppose both the panelists and the audience were of a more progressive bent, though I was also prepared to be mistaken if that was in fact not the case. I did check out the twitter feed of the theologian on the panel prior to the talk, and did notice he retweeted Fr. James Martin, Democratic Senator Tim Kaine, and a quote by liberation theologian Gustavo Gutierrez, which gave me a pretty good idea of his leanings. The friend who invited me and with whom I attended was not Catholic, but had an respectful curiosity about Catholicism in general and was open to learning something about the Church, which was in many respects a kind of foreign institution.

Life, politics, religion are never completely polarized to the extent we see on the news. Most people in everyday life are not classified in a binary fashion as either "Radical Leftists" or "Right-wing extremists" but have ideations on a gradient. And yet when it comes to my feeds, my social circle, and my Catholic sphere of influence, I would say I am in somewhat of a conservative bubble. I vet sources and am generally aware of which lean left and vice versa. I know publications like America magazine and The National Catholic Reporter exist, but do not feel inclined to read or cite them, though I try not to demonize them either. I am willing to concede that there are different ways of approaching or seeing an issue, and I try to be respectful and charitable in the way I would hope to be respected and treated with charity. So, my attendance at this talk was a kind of opportune forced exercise, a chance to venture out of said bubble and see what was going on on the other side of the Catholic fence.

The panelists shared their respective experience and views on the roots of the crisis. The lawyer--a Catholic mother of four--spoke about abuse in general and what was unique about abuse in the Church, the PA Grand Jury report, and her advocacy work. The theologian spoke about the problem of clericalism, structural sins/violence, unequal distribution of power, church organizing, and changing social structures. The priest spoke about his particular parish, comprised of predominately Hispanic families (many of whom were undocumented) and how in this community the priest is trusted and "they come to me for everything." They shared for about an hour, after which questions were taken from the audience.

I was there to learn--about the abuse crisis in the context of this particular talk, yes; but also as a "mystery shopper" to learn about how progressive Catholicism works and how "we-are-the-church" Catholics think, what they believe, and the things they presuppose. Here are a few of my observations:

-Learning how to read between the lines. 
The language that is used says a lot about their ideological presuppositions. For instance, references to the #metoo movement, social sin, change, justice, organizing, empowering, etc. are keywords for a progressive ideology. Whereas a conservative may regard with suspicion or disdain and would not include such terms in their lexicon, it is important to realize that for a progressive, these are points of pride. Change is not something to fear but embraced, for instance. It's where efforts should be focused, and mobilization should be occurring, a kind of "get out the vote" mentality. It can be subtle, though, not always overt but implicit.

-What is not talked about is as important as what is talked about.
Orthodox Catholics can sometimes fall into the trap of litmus testing and showing their hand in brusque fashion. "Yes, but what about ABORTION??" may be preemptively interjected when the topic of the preferential option for the poor comes up. Of course care for the poor should not be antithetical to the life of the unborn, so it plays into progressives' dismissal of conservatives as "obsessed with below-the-belt issues." The theologian spoke about his work supporting CRS (Catholic Relief Services) and getting other students involved with them as well. That being said, it was notable that many things were intentionally left unsaid when the John Jay report came up during the discussion. Homosexuality was never mentioned, and pedophilia was brought up, but not pederasty, for instance.

-How the narrative is framed
One thing I noticed--both from audience members when they offered their comments and questions, and from the panelists themselves--is that progressive-minded Catholics frame the narrative as one of power structures, inequality, and a kind of egalitarian ideal. One woman called for "a greater role for women in the Church" and another man spoke of empowerment of the laity in leading discussions and working to make a difference. It is an interesting intersection with conservative Catholics, though, who also realize there is a failure in ecclesial examples of personal holiness and that the laity will in fact be leading the charge in keeping the Church afloat. 

-Radically different assumptions
Much like the way Republicans favor small government, states' rights, and free markets while Democrats favor taxation and more federal oversight and regulation, there are different assumptions within the Church among progressives and conservatives on what "church" means, the role of the conscience, and ecclesial authority. Emphasis on the social and collective versus the personal was something I noticed (social/structural sin vs. personal holiness, etc)

When I had the opportunity to ask a question, I asked how the panelists saw the crisis of faith, as noted (but not discussed) in the title of the talk. I cited some statistics from Pew research indicating that 50% of young Americans who were raised in the Church no longer call themselves Catholic; that 7% of those raised in the Church still attend Mass weekly; and that 8 in 10 leave the Faith before they turn 23. Of course there is no real answer that can be summed up in a few minutes time, but the question itself, I felt, was worth asking. Does progressive Catholicism attract a committed and sustainable community of young believers? Does orthodoxy? If so, it is overstated, or is it enough to sustain the demographic vocations cliff that will radically challenge the ecclesial carrying capacity of the Church in the next twenty years when aging priests retire and/or die?

I felt like an outlier in the crowd, and while I originally had a kind of antagonistic mentality going in, I deliberately tried to temper it with an open-minded listening and a respectful temperance of pushing my own ideological assumptions forcefully into the conversation. These were people who were also committed to the Church as they knew it. I felt for the young theologian, who said that between his wife and him, they had five degrees in Theology between them. "I have given my whole life to the Church," he said, and seemed to imply that he was too invested to turn his back on it. But I also got the impression that the progressive platform rested on the theme of change, and doing it from the inside by way of organizing and challenging the nature of ecclesial hierarchy. It seemed like a kind of hold over from the 1960's way of thinking/organizing/exacting reform, a bit tired, and one that I'm not convinced will save the Church from its present crisis.

A Raggedy Faith

When I set up in the middle of town with a "CATHOLIC TRUTH" sign handing out Miraculous Medals, I feel really really uncomfortable. I don't really know what I'm doing or what we are really accomplishing, and I feel naked and foolish. Sometimes people will come up to us and say, "what about the pedophile priests? What about the hypocrisy?" And I don't really always have a good answer. I smile and pray, and just going back and keep setting up shop all the while feeling the sting.

When I go to Planned Parenthood to pray outside the doors, I feel really really uncomfortable. I don't know what me praying decade after decade of the rosary are accomplishing in the face of the overall worldly pragmatism of abortion. I don't know what I'm doing. Each man and woman that goes in and comes out, I pray a decade for. When the escorts are out in their pink vests, I pray for them but never take my eyes off them. Our eyes will meet sometimes, but they always seem to look away. They know. Still, I don't know what else to do but pray. I don't know what to say or do. And I am a neophyte, especially compared to the veterans that have devoted their life to what I do a handful of times a year.

In the movie "Romero," the Archbishop is invited to the home of a well-to-do couple. Pleasantries are exchanged, and then the businessman husband/father lays into Archbishop Romero in the kitchen:

"You religious people ...You live in your souls. You do not understand what we do ...producing, selling, bringing dollars in...Capital, to develop the country, to create jobs ...to build a prosperous economy. That is what affects people. But for that we must have law and order."

Succeeding in the world is a wholly pragmatic affair, one I never really caught on to, as I'm sometimes reminded. I never did any internships, got a useless degree, for ten years I thought I would be a monk, I never made much money and never really cared, don't have much to show for a career. But I've always prayed, and I know God is faithful. I know it is not a futile endeavor...but that itself takes faith. We're not called to be successful, as St. Teresa of Calcutta said...just faithful.

Still, faith can feel like a fools errand sometimes when we actually put it into practice, when we're not writing about it or sharing articles or having discussions. We think of the flesh typically as the passions, of lust and unchastity and the appetites. But for me it's as much the temptations of the flesh to be accepted, to pragmatism, to scientific verifiability, to NOT being really really uncomfortable and just playing safe, to not losing friends, to not being mocked.

It's seeing a woman walking into the clinic and thinking, "well, if I was in her shoes, no job and no family and no support, scared and feeling like I had not options, maybe I would be doing the same thing. Maybe abortion in that case would make sense, and who am I to judge her if I haven't walked in her shoes." Or if I was the boyfriend, maybe I'd want to 'cover my tracks' too. These are the temptations I face during these times, the very subtle whisperings of "you have no right" and "what do you know" and "sure, you can pray for me, if it makes you feel better, but it won't really change anything." The foolishness of religion, of faith, of prayer.

If you want to be a saint, you have to be a stubborn son of a gun, for God's sake. St. Philomena was scourged, drowned with an anchor attached to her, and shot with arrows. Each time she was attacked angels took to her side and healed her through prayer. Finally, the Emperor had Philomena decapitated when the 13 year old virgin still refused to marry him. If it weren't for the saints themselves, I wouldn't think Heaven was even a possibility. We have to be stubborn with ourselves too. Oftentimes I only have faith to spite my LACK of faith, to spite the one tempting me, because there is literally nothing else I have of worth except this poverty of foolish faith, like a ratty gift you offer a King. Please God, increase my faith, and take me down with the ship so I can rise with you when this life is over.

Tradition and Charity: The Face Of Renewal

For the past month or so my family and I have been attending Mass in the Extraordinary Form--also known as the Tridentine Mass or the Traditional Latin Mass--in the city near us. This is at a parish different than the one where we are registered. The parish where we are registered and had been attending until last month is actually very reverent and liturgically minded for the most part. The church itself is over 200 years old, and still has an altar rail (though it isn't used), pews facing the altar (rather than in a circle), and patins at Communion. So, it's not like we were fleeing a heterodox Mass rife with liturgical abuses.

So, I often think, 'what is it that led us here?' and considering we are thinking and praying about making the switch to be fully registered at this new parish, it seems strange that I don't have a water-tight answer. I grew up attending the Divine Liturgy in Ukranian with my dad occasionally, so traditional liturgy is more familiar than it is exotic or new. Truth be told, I was never even really attracted to it in the first place, as I felt (at least in the Byzantine liturgy) that it was all about the externals--the incense, the chanting, the constant bowing and crossing. When people speak about the TLM being Heaven on Earth, these are the kinds of things that are attractions, not deterrents. I can appreciate beauty and formality, of course; but the "beauty will save the world" argument is not what drew me.

In a way, traditional Catholicism has more in common liturgically with "deed over creed" Judaism than it does with contemporary Christianity. As A.J. Jacobs writes in "The Year of Living Biblically,"

"There's an emphasis on behavior; follow the rules of the Torah, and eventually you'll come to believe. But evangelical Christianity says you must first believe in Jesus, then the good works will naturally follow. Charity and kindness alone cannot save you. You must, as the saying goes, be "justified by faith."

Of course whether you attend the Traditional Latin Mass or the Novus Ordo (I still have trouble writing that without it feeling pejorative), we are one in our faith, which theologically is still consistent with the rest of Christianity in being "creed over deed." But liturgically speaking, it is apparent in attending the Latin Mass that the rituals, the words, the language, the orientation even--matters. Right worship leads to right belief, or so I'm told.

The thing is, I'm starting to see there might be something to this. What is so radically different about the Extraordinary Form of the Mass is that it does not take my feelings, my understanding, or my participation into account. It took a little while for me to realize what is actually happening, but one almost needs to go through a paradigm shift. We are not 'sharing in a communal meal' as is sometimes the conceptualization in the NO, but witnessing the priest offering the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass. Even as I write, I recognize how new I am to this way of thinking, given how unsure I am in getting the terminology (and, by extension, the theology) correct. And I have been Catholic for over twenty years!

But there is something to this, obviously. Dr. Peter Kwasniewski writes,

"This is the challenge that the traditional Roman liturgy makes to us again and again, in its prayers, its ceremonies, its calendar, and its ethos. It is not accommodated to our worldly compromises... It proclaims unequivocally the primacy of things heavenly and spiritual. It is the luminous expression of an ageless tradition of worship, as carried out by men and women who made this worship their primary work in life. As such, it does the opposite of pandering to us moderns; it confronts us with our need for radical conversion. The old Missal is the unwavering, undying repository of the radical message of Jesus Christ, our Lord and God. Are we ready to hear this Gospel and take up the Cross?"

"Distrust of self," writes Dom Lorenzo Scupoli, "is so absolutely requisite in the spiritual combat, that without this virtue we cannot expect to defeat our weakest passions, much less gain a complete victory. This important truth should be deeply imbedded in our hearts; for, although in ourselves we are nothing, we are too apt to overestimate our own abilities and to conclude falsely that we are of some importance."

I remember when reading The Spiritual Combat years ago making a mental note of the order of the four things (weapons) necessary in the fight (Distrust of one's self; confidence in God; proper use of the faculties of body and mind; and the duty of prayer). Why did he list "Distrust of Self" first, feeling it necessary to lay the groundwork of human weakness before extolling the virtue of confidence in God? Did it matter?

Additionally, we see another example of this 'ordering' when it comes to the Commandments in Matthew 22. When an expert in the law asks him, “Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?” Jesus replied:

"‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.” (Mt 22:36-39)

The Lord tells the expert in the law that all the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments, while acknowledging that "the first and greatest" commandment is to love the Lord God with all one's heart, soul, and mind. When speaking of the temporal goods we need to live and that we fret over--food, shelter, clothing--our Lord reasserts the proper order of things: "But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well" (Mt 6:33).

And so the way I have experienced it, that radical witness of God first as expressed in the traditional liturgy, sets the tone for everything else. This is what can be intimidating about the community--the seriousness and "set-apartness" of everything. You'd be forgiven for thinking you maybe wandered into a kind of Catholic Hutterite country if you didn't know better. At the first Latin Mass that we attended, I could not get over my self-consciousness. Our kids were behaving badly that particular day, even though most all of the other kids weren't. You could almost hear a pindrop--no idle chitchat, and a reverent attitude. The veils were a curiosity I had heard about, though not all women were wearing so it didn't seem like you would be kicked out for not wearing one. But it is that very seriousness and intentionality that, I think, is part of the attraction. There are no casual Catholics at a Latin Mass, for the most part. From what I gathered, most have significant buy-in and commitment, and have made sacrifices as well to be there. Some have suffered for it as well.

So what did get us there in the first place, and why have we continued to attend to the point of considering making it our permanent parish? I'd say it all started with...an invitation. We had friends of friends, very warm and hospitable people, who attended there and who extended an invitation for us to "come and see." We took them up on their offer. The first TLM we attended happened to be on a Sunday when they do hospitality afterwards--coffee, donuts and pastries, and a chance to mingle. Lots of kids running around, young families and older folks. As much as we tend to say as Catholics, "It's not about the fellowship, that's for Protestants," having a community to be a part of is important for some people, and I think we may fall into that camp. The community is small, but everyone seems to know one another, and are friendly. The pastor himself is a deeply humble and holy man, and he made time to get to know us as well.

I think there is a tendency, in the age of identity politics, to delineate into false dichotomies. Those less traditionally minded--as seen in liberal churches, Catholic or Protestant--may compensate by being more active in parish activities, service, and social justice initiatives, while traditionalists are all about the Mass and not as concerned with those other things. I consider myself and my family more as guests in someone's house at this point when it comes to the Latin Mass community, so I don't feel like I have any right to make such judgments about a community that is not yet our own. But I will say one of the most important things, one of the primary motivators besides an integrity in worship and learning to subject my ego to Almighty God, is that we pass on the faith to our children, and I feel that the TLM community is the best place to try to do this in. Our son has already expressed an interest in being a server, and the fact that there is no formal training or manual but that the other boys (and boys only) learn simply by observations and teaching each other with help from the priest is impressive. They serve with military precision, which appeals to male sensibilities, I think.

On the point of charity, and why I think traditionalism combined with charity has the potential to be an unstoppable force for renewal...it wasn't until listening to a conference of Fr. Ripperger's that I realized that the 'love' in 1 Cor 13 is really more accurately translated as charity. I considered that kind invitation to attend a Latin Mass by that friend of a friend as an act of charity. I had until then considered the Latin Mass community to be more or less insular and an island of sorts by choice, not open to outsiders. All it took was an invitation to get us there, a kind of gentle and innocuous evangelization in its ordinariness. Coffee and donuts as a way of connecting with other families and homeschoolers once a month was an added bonus.

Coming from a more left-leaning Catholicism in my early years as a Catholic, serving the poor was an important part of my spiritual practice and faith, one that I have no intention of abandoning. I also do not want to fall into the trap of denigrating or comparing Masses or the people that attend them; though we have made the decision to attend the Latin Mass when we are able (which is most Sundays) because we feel this is where God is leading us as a family, I still attend the NO for daily Mass and have no qualms with it (unless there are serious liturgical abuses). I'm a "both/and" rather than an "either/or" guy at heart, I think, and this applies as much liturgically as it does to charity and service to the poor, evangelization, practicing the Works of Mercy, and loving people.

When it comes to loving, we love because He first loved us (1 Jn 4:19). The greatest commandment, the "Big Stone First", is to love the Lord God with everything we have. And yet we also see in 1 John that

Those who say, “I love God,” and hate their brothers or sisters, are liars; for those who do not love a brother or sister whom they have seen, cannot love God whom they have not seen. The commandment we have from him is this: those who love God must love their brothers and sisters also. (1 Jn 4:20-21)

I am still a noob, but as we have witnessed, the power of the traditional liturgy to give glory to God here on earth, and the power of witness in charity here on earth as a means of leading people closer to Heaven, seems to be in my mind an unstoppable force for renewal. When I reflect on the following words of Pope emeritus Benedict XVI, it is such traditionally minded communities that come to my mind:

“The future of the Church can and will issue from those whose roots are deep and who live from the pure fullness of their faith. It will not issue from those who accommodate themselves merely to the passing moment or from those who merely criticize others and assume that they themselves are infallible measuring rods; nor will it issue from those who take the easier road, who sidestep the passion of faith, declaring false and obsolete, tyrannous and legalistic, all that makes demands upon men, that hurts them and compels them to sacrifice themselves. To put this more positively: The future of the Church, once again as always, will be reshaped by saints, by men, that is, whose minds probe deeper than the slogans of the day, who see more than others see, because their lives embrace a wider reality. Unselfishness, which makes men free, is attained only through the patience of small daily acts of self-denial. By this daily passion, which alone reveals to a man in how many ways he is enslaved by his own ego, by this daily passion and by it alone, a man’s eyes are slowly opened. He sees only to the extent that he has lived and suffered. If today we are scarcely able any longer to become aware of God, that is because we find it so easy to evade ourselves, to flee from the depths of our being by means of the narcotic of some pleasure or other. Thus our own interior depths remain closed to us. If it is true that a man can see only with his heart, then how blind we are!

“How does all this affect the problem we are examining? It means that the big talk of those who prophesy a Church without God and without faith is all empty chatter. We have no need of a Church that celebrates the cult of action in political prayers. It is utterly superfluous. Therefore, it will destroy itself. What will remain is the Church of Jesus Christ, the Church that believes in the God who has become man and promises us life beyond death. The kind of priest who is no more than a social worker can be replaced by the psychotherapist and other specialists; but the priest who is no specialist, who does not stand on the [sidelines], watching the game, giving official advice, but in the name of God places himself at the disposal of man, who is beside them in their sorrows, in their joys, in their hope and in their fear, such a priest will certainly be needed in the future.

“Let us go a step farther. From the crisis of today the Church of tomorrow will emerge — a Church that has lost much. She will become small and will have to start afresh more or less from the beginning. She will no longer be able to inhabit many of the edifices she built in prosperity. As the number of her adherents diminishes, so it will lose many of her social privileges. In contrast to an earlier age, it will be seen much more as a voluntary society, entered only by free decision. As a small society, it will make much bigger demands on the initiative of her individual members. Undoubtedly it will discover new forms of ministry and will ordain to the priesthood approved Christians who pursue some profession. In many smaller congregations or in self-contained social groups, pastoral care will normally be provided in this fashion. Along-side this, the full-time ministry of the priesthood will be indispensable as formerly. But in all of the changes at which one might guess, the Church will find her essence afresh and with full conviction in that which was always at her center: faith in the triune God, in Jesus Christ, the Son of God made man, in the presence of the Spirit until the end of the world. In faith and prayer she will again recognize the sacraments as the worship of God and not as a subject for liturgical scholarship.

“The Church will be a more spiritual Church, not presuming upon a political mandate, flirting as little with the Left as with the Right. It will be hard going for the Church, for the process of crystallization and clarification will cost her much valuable energy. It will make her poor and cause her to become the Church of the meek. The process will be all the more arduous, for sectarian narrow-mindedness as well as pompous self-will will have to be shed. One may predict that all of this will take time. The process will be long and wearisome as was the road from the false progressivism on the eve of the French Revolution — when a bishop might be thought smart if he made fun of dogmas and even insinuated that the existence of God was by no means certain — to the renewal of the nineteenth century. But when the trial of this sifting is past, a great power will flow from a more spiritualized and simplified Church. Men in a totally planned world will find themselves unspeakably lonely. If they have completely lost sight of God, they will feel the whole horror of their poverty. Then they will discover the little flock of believers as something wholly new. They will discover it as a hope that is meant for them, an answer for which they have always been searching in secret.

“And so it seems certain to me that the Church is facing very hard times. The real crisis has scarcely begun. We will have to count on terrific upheavals. But I am equally certain about what will remain at the end: not the Church of the political cult, which is dead already, but the Church of faith. It may well no longer be the dominant social power to the extent that she was until recently; but it will enjoy a fresh blossoming and be seen as man’s home, where he will find life and hope beyond death."

Famous Last Words

Blogging today, when you are a nobody like me, is a little like small-scale organic farming. You show up at the inefficient but quaint farmer's market each week, dutifully. People love your fresh brown eggs and parsnips. You might even have a unique treat you're known for, like home-grown morrells or apple-cider donuts, that draw a faithful dozen to your stand week after week. It's a nice group of people who meander through. The county newspaper did an article on your enterprise that highlighted the role of the local farmer. You know your efforts are not really 'worth it' the way big ag would calculate it, and you have to take a second job off the farm, but you are 'adding value' through community building, sustainable development, and micro-harvesting, and giving people a connection to their food with the hands who produced it. There is value there, an idealism being kept alive because of the people who support it.

I've been writing on Blogger since 2007, when blogging was in its prime. I had an eclectic blog titled Rob's Fobs that I retired after eight years. It consisted of poetry, short stories, plays, inventions, musings, and struggles with mental health. In 2015 I wanted to have a blog focused more narrowly on my life of faith, how I lived as a Catholic man, a husband, father, and disciple of Jesus Christ. Anything not having to do with faith, family, marriage, chastity, or discipleship I consciously omitted or (saved for Facebook). This was Wisdom and Folly. Prior to 2007, I blogged on (wait for it)...MySpace. I have always written, whether it was on scraps of lined notebook paper folded in the back pocket of my Gap corduroys in high school, or on a small NEC laptop in a rented room in Mexico, or pumping quarters into a desktop computer at an internet cafe in Bangkok...I've always written.

Blogging has always been a nice outlet for me. I've never tried to monetize my blog, and I'm proud of that for whatever reason. As the pastor Francis Chan said, "money makes people do weird things." I don't fault anyone for trying to make some bucks from their writing; I just felt I'd rather pick up trash from the curb and resell it on Craigslist as a way to bring in some extra cash rather than taint something I treat as a kind of sacred recreation. Writing, especially when it comes to matters of faith, isn't really valued among the general populace. Why should it be? Christ the Lord offers the Gospel as a means of salvation for all who would accept it free of charge, though it is worth more than the finest gold. And what percentage of the population joyfully hear it, take it to heart, and keep it close to their breast?

I like to offer what I write as a gift to whomever it may bless. I'm a 'take what's useful and leave the rest' kind of guy, and I imagine some of my readers are as well. I'm not big on exploiting controversy or capitalizing on the latest Church scandal or leveraging liberal nonsense as part of a conservative mouthpiece. I just write about what I feel prompted to write about as it comes, and if it pertains to faith, I entrust that intuition to the Holy Spirit to bless my efforts and keep me from error. Sometimes I'll jot down a few keywords on a bar napkin, or make a mental note during a homily at Mass, or get up in the middle of the night to pen something and stake it to a page before it expires. Writing is a compulsion and a curse. Always has been for me. A blessing and a curse.

I have always felt close to the words of the prophet Jeremiah, who wrote,

"But if I say, "I will not mention his word or speak anymore in his name," his word is in my heart like a fire, a fire shut up in my bones. I am weary of holding it in; indeed, I cannot." (Jer 20:9)

Writers, even secular ones, know this to be painfully true, this spiritual constipation. Writers write. That's why blogging today feels like a lonely enterprise...because it's really not about the writing anymore. It's about SEO, monetizing, building your network, ad revenue, pay per click, etc. Though I love to write, I'm wondering if blogging has been co-opted enough that it's lost it's plausability as a legitimate hosting platform. That's a hard pill to swallow when you've invested, oh, the past 15 years or so building and feeding your blog with content. I did a XML export of all my blog content (367 posts over the past three years at Wisdom and Folly) for PDF/docx conversion, and it's a LOT. I want to keep it. I know my wife wants to keep it. It's the public part I'm struggling with.

I am not a journaler. What I write, I write to share. If no one is going to read it, I usually don't write it. This is a double-edged sword. Writing for an audience hones and focuses your content and helps you develop your voice and style, but it's hard to detach from the need for validation, to know what you're writing is being read, to track stats and analytics. So much ego in writing, and so wily. There is also the privacy aspect, and for my family's sake, the desire to keep a lower profile, and not to exploit those tender private moments I have with my children, as I am wont to do, for the world to see.

Some people have encouraged me to consider writing a book. At this point I have no plans to, but with the blog off the table, maybe it will move me closer to consideration. I will continue to write for Catholic Stand and maybe work on branching out to other Catholic publications as well. To all thoughts contrary, I'm not drying up in the material department. I could keep writing and churning out posts and content. In fact, I feel as fresh as ever. Which is even more reason why I feel God may be calling me to put this on the altar right now while things are in their prime.

I've never really 'fit' anywhere, another struggle for me and a reason I've enjoyed maintaining a kind of independence here on Blogger. I'm not a hardcore conservative and I'm not a hardcore liberal and I'm not a liturgist and I'm not a theologian, I'm not a stay at home mom, I'm not a Thomist, I'm not a social media guru, I'm not a super Catholic, I'm just some 38 year old guy trying to get to Heaven and bring his family with him and leaving a trail of words in his wake.

I will be embarking on a 90 day prayer discipline with a few other Catholic men starting on January 21st, which will require a good bit of focus, time in prayer and scripture, and asceticism. I've decided to keep the blog public until that day, at which point it will come down and be archived. If you want to reach out via the contact form, I may be able to send you a copy via email of every post ever written in PDF 'book' form, but only if you promise to keep it to yourself! I hope to have that done sometime this week. Please stay in touch by way of email, should we happen to connect in this way.

This is not an easy decision, and I don't even grasp fully why it needs to be this way. But I am trusting the conviction, that in hoping to honor God in all things and above all things, that I would tie my words to the altar and draw the knife if it's what He wants. He has His reasons; He knows what He is about. He is leading me somewhere deeper and I don't know where, and taking my prize possessions as collateral. Who knows, maybe He will give them back some day, maybe even a hundred fold? I honestly don't know what is ahead, or what kind of outlet I will have in place of this blog. I'm trusting Him. Though he slay me, I will trust him still. (Job 13:15)

Comments are open to the public, and are enabled. I am so grateful for your support, those who promoted Wisdom and Folly and those who simply took pleasure or solace in reading.

Please pray for me, and I for you.

In Christ,

Rob
12 January 2019

A Wallet Full Of Memories

As parents of three kids, my wife and I try to be intentional about carving out one on one time with our kids. Some wise Christian friends told us not to waste those little moments of running errands or being out and about--take a kid with you.

I decided to do this with my oldest this past Monday. I had stayed home from work because my wife was sick, and was going a little stir crazy near the end of the day. I decided to take my son to return some pants, stop by Lowes, and make a visit to the Adoration chapel to pray. He's been wanting to do everything dad does lately: wearing aftershave, hammering nails into wood, and asking about girls. If she could handle the other two kids for an hour, I would take the oldest out.

Everything was going great. We made an impromptu stop for ice cream. There were two other dads with their sons, which he noticed. It was "our place" and we shared a cone, and spun around on the bar stools. When we finished up, we headed to return the pants, but in the store things started to get derailed when he saw a toy he wanted and I said we couldn't get it. He got huffy, and then when we also emerged empty handed from Lowes, he started feeling like it was a wasted trip. When we got to the Adoration Chapel, he was upset and sulky. We both kneeled down to pray, him reluctantly at first. He started to blame God for things--He's not really there, He never answers my prayers, etc. I don't pray enough for my kids, but I prayed for him there, very intentionally, that he should never fall away from the Lord.

When we left the chapel, the waterworks began. He was upset because the memories we were making in the beginning of the afternoon, he loved them. "And then you had to RUIN EVERYTHING!" It wasn't what he expected. I knelt down to his level and tried to console him but he wasn't having it.

"You know D, we can make memories from anything. That's what's great about having an imagination. Anything can be a memory!"

He stopped crying for a moment and looked up, curious.

"Listen, I have an idea. Let's make a memory, something to remember between me and you, right now. Do you want to be my race car co-pilot? Yeah? Well, let's go."

I strapped him in, and started the car. "Okay, now listen, there's going to be a lot of drivers chasing us, so you have to have the smoke bombs ready. I'll try to lose them, but I'll need your  help."

He was listening, getting excited. "Okay."

We pulled out of the church parking lot and made a left to the highway. Soon enough, a car with headlights emerged in my rearview mirror. "Oh boy, D. Here we go."

"What?"

"Get the smoke bombs ready. I'll try to lose him."

I sped up. "We're losing him!" he cried. "Yeah, but there's a red light ahead. Get the smoke bomb ready!"

He was bouncing in his seat, excited. "Okay, bombs away!" He turned in his seat and threw an imaginary distraction at the guy behind us.

"We lost him!" I yelled, when the driver turned right and we turned left.

We continued to race and lose cars, throwing bombs all the way home. It was a silly game that boys love, that I loved growing up on vacation. I remembered it today, even with my lousy memory. By the time we got home, he was all smiles and told his mom and sister excitedly about everything we did. We managed to salvage a potential disaster with the power of imagination glued together with a few hours of borrowed time. It didn't cost us anything, and wasn't scheduled.

When we lose people we love, their memories sustain us. Memories are bonded to time, and they take place in real life, cached in the mind. They can also sear the heart, because we can never repeat them, only replay them. It's a kind of metaphysical currency we deal in. For a boy who has lost his dad, all he has of him are memories and mementos. If my kids ever lose me, I want them to have good ones that are worth their weight in gold.

The Sweet Box

I ran across an interesting article at Crisis the other day about Japanese-South Korea relations. It touched on the controversial issue of "comfort women" and "comfort stations" during World War II:

"The point of the comfort stations was to...meet the sexual needs of its troops and improve morale while preventing venereal disease and ensuring that troops did not engage in pillow talk with local, unlicensed prostitutes, who were often paid by enemy forces to extract information from military clients. Virtually every military in the Second World War, and in every war before that, used some version of the “comfort women” system. American General Claire Chennault even went so far as to fly in disease-free prostitutes from India for his syphilis-wracked pilots and mechanics in the Flying Tigers brigade in Kunming."

In France, mobile brothels were referred to as bordels mobile de campagne or BMCs. These BYOBs (bring your own brothel) were given creative euphemisms such as "la boîte à bonbons" (the sweet box). In Europe today, the usage is less dressed up and more crudely utilitarian. In Germany, drive-in sex garages are known as verrichtungsboxen, or “relief boxes,” and in the Netherlands afwerkplek which translates as "a place to finish the work."

If this seems like a degeneration unique to modern times, I imagine you would be mistaken. Prostitution, as they say, is the oldest profession. If there were no demand, there would be no supply. And there has always been demand.

On the one hand, governments and military are taking what they see as a pragmatic approach to not so much solve, but contain what they see as an inevitable issue. For GIs at risk of syphilis and gonorrhea (the US army discharged 10,000 soldiers and lost 7 million man days during WWII because of these STDs), supplying their own sex workers was meant to keep disease, rape (which had the potential to destabilize relations in the occupied regions, not to mention the egregious act itself on the local women), and leaking of military info to a minimum. Yet, what is not addressed is why the assumption that men cannot exercise self-control, that sexual needs are an absolute, and that one can only mitigate the risks of such activity, is taken as a given.

You could make the argument that the law of unintended consequences (both social, economic, and criminal) might be at play when such liberal policies are enacted. San Francisco mandated low-flow toilets and reeked havoc on their sewer system as a result. Colorado legalized recreational marijuana in an effort to tax and regulate it, yet did not anticipate the rise in black market export of cannabis over state lines. A 2012 study found countries where prostitution is legal experience greater “inflows” of human trafficking. Germany showed a sharp uptick in reports of trafficking after it legalized prostitution, and in Denmark, where prostitution is decriminalized, the number of trafficking victims spiked to more than four times that of neighboring Sweden, where the practice is illegal.

I see the assumption that A+B will always equal C in play as well when it comes to the use of artificial contraception and abortion. Proponents of greater access to birth control argue that if you want to reduce the number of abortions, make birth control more widely available, and educate on its use. Slam dunk. But despite how easy and accessible birth control is today, it has not made abortion obsolete. Even Planned Parenthood's own research admits that 54% of women seeking abortions were using contraception at the time they got pregnant.

But this is not a social issue post. I don't know how to solve these societal issues on the macro scale. But I want to take the opportunity to talk about this idea of 'unfathomable' chastity as it pertains to men.

The sexual appetite is strong, and chastity as a virtue is not easy to attain. It reminds me of the scripture, when Jesus tells the disciples about the rich entering the Kingdom in Mt 19:23-26:

“Truly I say to you, it is hard for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven. Again I say to you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God.” When the disciples heard this, they were very astonished and said, “Then who can be saved?” And looking at them Jesus said to them, “With people this is impossible, but with God all things are possible.”

It's not just hard, it's impossible. It's interesting that these words of our Lord come in Matthew's Gospel right after his words on marriage and divorce. Servant of God Fr. John Hardon, SJ, wrote:

"I never tire repeating that without Holy Communion, it is impossible to practice the charity which Christ demands of His followers. Plain logic tells us that, if this is true, neither can we practice Christian chastity without the frequent, even daily, reception of the Holy Eucharist. It is not only that our own frequent, even daily, assistance at Mass is a powerful source of chaste living. The Holy Sacrifice, offered on so many altars, is a reservoir of divine strength against the demon of lust for all mankind."

Note the relationship between charity and chastity. And chastity is not just "not having sex with prostitutes," or not masturbating. It is a purity of heart, for the married and unmarried alike. I have been listening to St. Francis de Sales' "Introduction to the Devout Life" while driving in the car. In the chapter on purity, he writes,

"Remember that there are things which blemish perfect purity, without being in themselves downright acts of impurity. Anything which tends to lessen its intense sensitiveness, or to cast the slightest shadow over it, is of this nature; and all evil thoughts or foolish acts of levity or heedlessness are as steps towards the most direct breaches of the law of chastity. Avoid the society of persons who are wanting in purity, especially if they are bold, as indeed impure people always are."

Modern man thinks of the sexual appetite in animalistic terms with no regard to the faculty of reason. Like an animal, he cannot help himself with these urges anymore than one can go days without eating or going to the bathroom, so focus on minimizing the fallout (disease, legal repercussions, pregnancy). This reduction of sex for men to the equivalent of relieving oneself on the toilet has lead to a bottoming out in poverty not only in the spiritual elements of sex, but in our regard for the sanctity of life, the dignity of women, and confusion over what constitutes appropriate sexual boundaries. Why should we be surprised women (and children!) are trafficked to feed the demand for sexual gratification, however heinous or perverted, abortion is so widespread, and sexual confusion so pervasive?

When I think of my time before coming to Christ, and even early on in my conversion before I had a firm grasp of the standard Christ calls us to, the idea of chastity of mind, heart, and body did seem unattainable. I mean, literally. But the victory does not come by sheer human effort or gritting teeth, but by grace. God has given me a new heart (Ezekiel 36:26) and has done things for me I was unable to do alone by my own will and strength, to purify my mind, my memory, and my heart.

We are not animals, we are men of reason, and though we will always struggle, the abandonment of our wills to the flesh is not unavoidable or only to be contained. Christ does not lower the bar to meet our weakness, but raises us up by his grace to higher heights to make us perfect as he is perfect and gives us a new heart, a new mind. He gives us the grace we need, and we should be indebted to a Christian ethos that values so highly the dignity of women, upholds the Natural Law, and the model of monogamous marriage. It is a complete paradigm shift that holds even thoughts liable to judgment. It demands a lot, but offers much as well.

"Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways submit to him, and he will make your paths straight." 

(Prov 3:5-6)